Free from Harm

08/21/2026

Whatever claims you may hear about consumers driving the demand for animal products, the animal ag. industry knows how to increase demand for its products through powerful marketing campaigns. Here the dairy industry is boasting on its phenomenal marketing success at increasing milk sales in 2026 by 5.9 billion over 2025. The increases are attributed to a 25% increase in exports and thee market for high protein products. Forecasts for the year anticipate 236.6 billion pounds of milk produced in the US in 2026.

What this means for activism is that our focus needs to shift to holding food industry powerholders accountable who are making big deals long before consumers make any purchases. Consumers buy what is marketed to them.

Milk production keeps climbing, but changing consumer tastes and growing demand for protein could give dairy more places to put all that milk.

08/18/2026

Thousands of cows in South Dakota died of heat stress last month. Our tax dollars will bail out industry losses in the form of "disaster relief" payments from the USDA. Instead of responding to the climate emergency by supporting plant-based proteins, the USDA is using our tax dollars to keep the animal industries profitable.

What can you do? Send a message to USDA Secretary Rollins at [email protected] urging her to stop adding fuel to the fire and instead support real plant-based solutions.

Source:

George Kenzy said he did all he could to prepare his family’s feedlot for extreme heat and humidity. That included extra water tanks, covering the ground with light-colored bedding to reduce heat absorption, and keeping the ground as wet as possible.

08/15/2026

1.6m dozen eggs from Texas recalled amid one of the largest recorded foodborne illness outbreaks in US history

08/11/2026

What is beyond campaigning against Save Our Bacon language in the Farm Bill? Are there more impactful and equally practical demands to make to benefit animals, the planet and public health? Here's Free from Harm founder Robert Grillo on how to look ahead at future Farm Bill activism.

08/10/2026

One of the key arguments defending cage-free campaigning for years has been the claim that moving to cage free systems imposes high costs on the egg industry. But Dan Shannon of The Humane League just pointed out that the industry cost to move from cage to cage-free systems is just pennies on a carton, yet the egg industry sells cage-free eggs at a markup of $1 to $2 or more. “Almost all of that is corporate profit,” says Shannon. While cage free systems may impose some marginal increased costs, cage free eggs have helped contribute to the egg industry’s record profits. https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbyd2D9iOj7/

08/06/2026

The Republican Farm Bill fails to pass the Senate Ag. Committee today. Future of bill now uncertain. This is not a bad thing because this is a bad bill on many levels. Dems want a lot more for SNAP. We want a lot more for plant-based producers and a lot less for animal agriculture which is already making record profits!

Note that No Save Our Bacon language was ever introduced, just as we were repeatedly told by the Chairman, during this entire process. So all that effort campaigning against this could have been spent on advocating for better funding for plant foods which would spare a lot more animals suffering.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/08/06/congress/snap-stalemate-scuttles-senate-republicans-farm-bill-01027439

08/05/2026

As chicken numbers have risen globally, so have the fortunes of the bacterial pathogen
Campylobacter jejuni, which infects chickens and other birds. The bacteria are more prevalent, more mobile, and more genetically diverse than in 1960. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/
BuVB50Zwbn5

As chicken numbers have risen globally, so have the fortunes of the bacterial pathogen Campylobacter jejuni, which infects chickens and other birds. The bacteria are more prevalent, more mobile, and more genetically diverse than in 1960. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/BuVB50Zwbn5